


Verse

by littledust



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-04
Updated: 2005-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 21:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/pseuds/littledust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Todd thinks of Neil in verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Verse

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, _Dead Poets Society,_ how I love thee. I dedicate this to [](http://keylimetruffle.livejournal.com/profile)[**keylimetruffle**](http://keylimetruffle.livejournal.com/). <3

Every line of poetry I could ever write marched unevenly up and down his forearms, danced over his shoulderblades. He made me think of ink and vellum, some kind of living poem, words and passion made flesh. It was wrong to venerate him so, to raise him a level above everyone else, and yet I would rather give name to the cold spaces between us than navigate them. The concept of bridging that final gap terrified me, and so I worshiped him with the altar of my eye, convinced myself I would burn to ashes if I touched him. Neil Perry, untouchable. God, I could almost believe the lie.

The truth was he was so very touchable. Kind little brushings of hands followed me like fireflies, outlining me with brief glows of fairy light. Puck, alight with elfin mischief. Puck, immune to lovers' quarrels. I watched him rehearse his lines and thought my heart would break. I wanted to be a comma on his pages, curled like a caterpillar around some stray word, tucked safely away when the book closed. God, the poetry I saw all over him. A pen in my hand could not shape it, though.

 _Gorgeous fever,_ I had scribbled down in my notebook, for that was how I felt. Neil sat on the window ledge, studying his Latin, the dying light holding his face in strange flashing shadows. Changeling, godling, fairy prince. With every word I raised him higher, higher, safer. There was no question of a fall from such a high place; he had wings, always.

 _Gorgeous fever..._ I stared down at the page, biting the end of my pencil. What else was I feeling? What could I put into words? Mr. Keating had unknotted some cramped muscle inside of me and now I was learning to flex it, the joy of its movement. _Gorgeous fever, a flash flood in fire..._ I penciled those words in lightly, unsure if the alliteration was overdoing it. Neil turned a page and I ached. Drunk on poetry, far gone to romanticism. He shut the book.

"More poetry?" he asked, turning his head, the sun catching his face at last, the pale skin and the startling darkness of hair and eyes. Poems again, volumes of text I could never finish reading, nor tire of attempting to. My thoughts were strange today.

"Just words," I mumbled, and that mellow autumn light lent me no poetry, not even prose. The words fumbled on my tongue, graceless. Useless.

"Poetry is, more or less, just words." Neil grinned and got up and then he sat next to me on the bed, peering over my shoulder. "Besides, I've heard your words. You know how to put them together."

I frowned a little, blushed a little, died a little. "No one will ever let me forget that, will they?"

"It was unforgettable."

Neil the illusory untouchable, the capricious sprite, the charmed boy--the depth perception shifted, a blurred image gone clearer. And now the smile he wore looked crooked, clumsy, charming. Irrevocably human. He had blood in him and that gave him warmth and I could feel it seeping into my mattress, into me. The leaping beat of my pulse prompted an answer, demanded a lengthy one.

"It's... But... These words are _just_ words, not a real poem. Real poems, you can put to your lips and... and taste them, like a peach, it's exactly like a peach except... realer. But this poem of mine, you'd only taste paper if you put it in your mouth."

And then I trailed off into startled silence, frightened by my own words. Sometimes I wondered whether I could ever find a balance between saying too much or nothing at all. Neil's eyes were wide. His humanity circled around me like a cat. The eventual inevitable delighted smile made me want to cry. Neil, how the mighty have fallen, you wasting your time befriending me.

"That's exactly how reading a poem feels, exactly!" he exulted, eyes alight in a ferocity of tenderness, horrible joy. "Todd, you should share that at the meeting tonight. You'll inspire everybody!" Neil was the only person I knew who could defy gravity sitting down. I scattered like meteor showers when he grasped my hand in his. The air stretched and grew tense, an arrow nocked on a bowstring.

"You're amazing," he said, and gave me an almost-kiss, the palest brushing of mouth against mouth. I followed the lines of his lips--poetry, poetry--and I savored their meter and tasted their rhythm. There were things that I wanted to say to him that I said _through_ him, my words made flesh. He was my catalyst, my conduit, my muse. We climbed atop a single funeral pyre and burned it to the ground, and I the blind bard immortalized our story. His hands cupped my face, kept me close. The kiss was clumsy; we were both making it up as we went along, improvisational verse. I wanted to die of happiness. Neil's hands were shaking.

Human, human, human.

"Carpe diem," Neil breathed, and the breath became a smile became a laugh, soft and furred like a kitten. I could see his hands were still shaking, all that passion causing him to tremble, a string quivering on a harp. He laced his fingers through mine and we both shook, and kissed again, and I was terrified of this warm living creature beside me with his whole soul in his eyes. I was terrified for him. I was terrified for me. He felt things for me. I felt things for him. Everything for him.

I said, "The poem isn't finished yet, Neil." And he nodded, and understood.

We watched the stars come out in perfect silence.


End file.
